First week back

It's my first week back in New Zealand and it's been a rough one. My plane landed in Auckland on Sunday and I managed to get thru customs fairly quickly which was nice since I had yet another plane to catch. What didn't help my time table was that my luggage didn't make it to New Zealand. Lost Luggage said that it had been left in LAX but they would ship it to me and since I had a plane to catch I didn't argue much. On the upside when transferring from American Airlines to Air New Zealand there would have been an baggage fee (international vs domestic rates) so I wasn't going to be charged that and I didn't have to lug my gear across to the other terminal which involved co-ordinating a 3 min bus ride.

I was also hoping to score a free ride home by texting friends however my phone was not having it. I ran a lot of updates on my computers while in the US because of data caps in New Zealand and apparently one of them screwed up my phones ability to work in New Zealand. One stupidly over priced taxi ride later I'm finally back to my now dusty apartment with no food or phone but hey my bed still looks comfy. A fun little scooter ride later in the cold (because it was warmer in Alabama than here) I've settled in with food and get some sleep. Jet lag is a incurable hangover that has lasted me a few days.

Monday back at work was nice just to see everyone. Rachel and I got almost nothing done as we spent most of the day catching up. I went to her house afterwards to continue our talk so that we could actually get something done on Tuesday. It was nice to enjoy her new house (which she just built with her family) and hang out with her son Evan who didn't seem to miss me all too much ;)

Tues afternoon my luggage could be picked up from the airport so Rachel was kind enough to take me after work but unfortunately on the way we were hit by another car on the rear passenger side. Foolish driver tried to cross two lanes of traffic at 5:05 instead of just going out where the light was.  We were all ok but it was just one more thing for the hectic week at work. Stress was piling on.

By Wendsday my phone still doesn't work and continues to mock my efforts to use it. We all have back to back meetings which end up giving us more work which is good but no time to do it in. Wed night I noticed my kindle doesn't want to turn on. The button at the bottom wont click on. I can turn on my kindle with my computer but the power switch is non functioning. >sigh<

Now it's Thursday and I feel just as behind as yesterday. Poor Todd and Rachel had a 3 hour meeting. Rachel had two before that and one with me after. Phone still doesn't work and kindle is glitchy. So I decided to update my blog with all the posts I wrote on my phone until I realized that 15 posts have been erased. Super.

Come on Friday

My work today

It's that time of year again that the clients panic and send us massive amounts of work to be done that they have known about for months to be compressed into one weeks worth of work. This means 50 hour weeks of design chaos, gallons of Dr. Pepper and occasional chocolate cake. All in all not that bad, no worse than finals that's for sure. In fact I'm going to say it's 10xs better but it is still a bit crazy. Below is one magazine. One.

Snow in August!

Jess's Birthday

Jess's Birthday was yesterday along with Intergalactic star wars appreciation day on May the Fourth! (may the fourth be with you). We gave her a card with her engagement gifts which consisted of some money toward the wedding and some Reel Time vouchers (Todd's movie rental store). We made her a chocolate cake with cream cheese icing, or rather Rachel did. I just decorated.
Happy Birthday Jess!

This is Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas - that movie you never wanted me to watch mom!

What's Going on

A hot cross bun!

Things got crazy here at work in the past week with everyones deadline coming up at once. We were closed Good Friday and Easter Monday so two short weeks in a row at such a tight time only made it worse. I had to spend my days off recovering from 12 hour days. It's almost 9pm now and I only just got home! Ah! But today is the last day of all that shenanigans so the next few days no matter how crazy will seem so placid compared to the last week.

Even with all the crazy my workmates are a blast. We ended up doing an ABBA sing-a-long tonight after hours  which was horribly awful and tons of fun. Cinco de Mayo is coming up and now that I have a key to the office I think I'm gonna decorate it on the 4th and make enchiladas for everyone, just to make it fun. Another girl's birthday is coming up soon also and she loves Alice in Wonderland so we are collecting miss-matched tea sets for her un-birthday party which will be fun too. 

Todd's Mac Mini Carrot Cake

We recently had Todd's birthday party which was also a blast. Every morning Todd gets everyone's coffee from Cafe Cuba and then comes into work around 9. I'm pretty sure most days he also gets lunch and dinner there too. Since they know him by name I called them early to let the workers know it was his birthday. They sang him songs and gave him lots of free food which was good. When he asked who tipped them off one of the girls replied "I don't know but she had an American accent". Well, he got a kick out of that too. Rachel and I made him a carrot cake from scratch icing and all in the shape of a mac mini for noms. It was amazingly delicious if I do say so myself.

Since I had a four day weekend I had hoped to take a bus down to Wellington and do some major clothes shopping, hit up every Mexican restaurant (I made a list) and Te Papa (the national museum) but it didn't happen. Apparently all the stores were closed as well as my workplace so I rescheduled my bus and hotel for this weekend. Less time but more accomplished. I was/am in desperate need of winter clothing. The cotton gear from the US is not built for this weather and I am sick of freezing to death at my desk. Still need to build up the wardrobe to stay warm here but it's coming along. I'm still used to that good 'ole Alabama weather. Even tho it's not much colder than what it gets in AL and it's not as damp it's still somehow COLDER here that there. I think it's because of the wind and the fact that it's arctic air directly from Antarctica. Remember, there is nothing between here and there for us.

Ah well , will upload pics of what I did get later. Hugs to all!

What I've been up to

This past week at work has been crazy with getting a magazine completed to go to print. Our client decided to go to print on Easter weekend which was a actually a big issue since everyone in town including us and the printer is closed for good friday and Easter monday which is also ANZAC day here as well. ANZAC Day is is observed in New Zealand as a day of commemoration for those who died in the service of their country and to honour returned servicemen and women. Below is an example of some of the process, there are 74 pages here, all of which I worked on and some designed myself. Most of them Todd helped me on but I really needed a four day holiday. My brain is fried.

Holy Cow what is it?!

Walked into work this morning very early and after turning on the lights decided to go into the kitchen and warm up my breakfast before starting the day. That is where i found this huge bugger that was about 1.5" tall and 2" long crawling his way across the carpet. I promptly screamed "WHAT IS IT?!" and ran into the other room, turning running back into the kitchen and grabbed a glass to trap it. When Jess came in about 10 min later I had completely forgotten about it but I could hear her laughing from the kitchen. She informed me that it is a Weta bug and actually quite a small one. Apparently (according to wikipedia) there is some sort of Giant Weta and 'people' like them as 'pets'. Crazies. ;)

We put the weta outside and Jess took this pic (where he looks much less scary) for a job where she needed a pic of a weta. It worked out great for her!

Giant Weta - Note: I pulled this off the web for an example. Mine was not this big nor have I seen one this big

Anyhow, we put it outside and within 5 min it had already worked it's way back under our door but became sluggish. We prodded it a bit and thought it dead after squishing itself but I put a glass on it to be sure. 5 min later the thing was trying to escape again so we took it back outside for more picks before leaving it in the rose bushes. We named him Jesús

New printer at work

Today's big news included a big printer that is 3x's the size of the old one. Here is "goliath" and my boss Todd.

Goliath

Todd messed with the wrong printer

Shiny New Computer

When I returned to Loudhailer my other computer had finally had it's last days while was away so I got a shiny new MacPro complete with this awesome screen and keyboard. :D It's like someone put a brand new swing on my playground.

to print

Today my first big job went to print. First big job ever that I am really proud of. I have had jobs go to print for UAB and for Cummings but I wasn't as in love with the work as it had been bent, warped, and generally dictated by other people. The project today is for Lexus's 20th anniversary dinner at a private location. It is a menu/placeholder each of which must be hand assembled and embossed. We'll see how thrilled I am after tomorrows work on such. But for today they are on their way to the printer and that is enough for me :D

Loudhailer

my desk, Todd brought me a CA name plate for it :D

my desk which is now much more cluttered

Kitchen compete with Dr.Pepper and Chocolate banana nut bread muffins

lobby

lobby/logo wall

Tea with Loudhailer

So this morning I was invited to go out for tea and coffee with the Loudhailer crew. I hadn't really had an opprotunity to meet the other girl that works there so it was nice to see her and talk to her a bit. There are only 3 people at Loudhailer; Todd (owner and designer) Rachel (who works with accounts and clients) and Jessica (who does limited design and mac operations). Super stoked, I went in and I could see my desk already set up ready to rock and roll :D
We went out for tea at Cafe Cuba, ended up staying for breakfast and then going back to the office to discuss my contract. The whole process took about 3 hours since we kept getting side tracked talking about all sorts of random things. It was a blast, sooo excited to start!